Hand weights are commonly used as physical fitness instruments by joggers, walkers, or other physical fitness enthusiasts. These hand weights help develop muscle tone, as well as physical endurance during the natural arm and hand movement of a workout. Light hand weights are preferred over heavier hand weights, since the objective is to build stamina, physical endurance and muscle tone without detracting from the overall workout associated with the primary exercise, i.e., walking or jogging. In other than closed environments, such as health club tracks or shopping malls, walkers and joggers are subject to physical attack from dogs and other animals. Indeed, as any jogger knows, loose dogs commonly chase or attack a running person. Thus, many joggers have taken to carrying dispensing cans of pepper spray or other chemical irritants to ward off attack. Many of these same joggers also like to carry hand weights. It becomes difficult and time-intensive to juggle hand weights while accessing the can of pepper spray or other like device to defend himself or herself. The disadvantage is that a jogger is sometimes forced to forego carrying hand weights in favor of a self-defense tool or forego jogging altogether.
Walkers are faced with the same or similar decisions. A walker must often decide, before beginning his or her exercise, whether a decision should be made to forego carrying hand weights in favor of a self-defense tool, or risk not being able to act in time when attacked by a dog or other stray animal. Many walkers have taken up the age-old idea of carrying a walking stick. Such walking sticks provide a defense tool against stray animals. However, walking sticks, like pepper spray or other defense tools, prevent dual use with hand weights.
Night sticks and batons are also well known in the art as intermediate force weapons for use by law enforcement personnel. The wooden night stick has advanced to expandable telescoping batons as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,297. These telescoping batons are usually hollow, made or steel or a steel alloy, and when collapsed, the telescoping sections are nested within the handle. One of the disadvantages over prior art wooden night sticks is the additional weight a telescoping baton adds to standard issue equipment of a law enforcement officer. When a steel baton is added to the belt of an officer while already carries two-way radios, firearms, ammunition, flashlights, etc., it adds substantially to the weight of the uniform. An effort to overcome such weight as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,356,139, which discloses using materials of different specific weight to construct the baton. Lightweight materials, such as aluminum, are substituted where possible in order to reduce the overall weight of the baton. Obviously, substituting lighter weight products such as aluminum will weaken a baton. If a strong lightweight alloy is used, the overall cost of the baton increases significantly. Additionally, manufacturing and assembly costs are increased, since two different manufacturing processes are required to construct different sections of the baton and the manufacturing processes must then coincide in order to facilitate assembly of the different pieces.
Prior art telescoping batons also come in a variety of lengths. Thus, different size law enforcement officers can choose a length which suits their size and strength. For example, a smaller officer may feel more comfortable with a baton which expands into a longer length. The force generated at the tip of the baton is greater than a shorter length baton, since the same swinging action, over a longer length, produces a greater force. As is well known then, the longer the baton, the greater the force, all other things being constant. Conversely, a larger officer may feel more comfortable with a shorter length baton which, because of the officer's size, can impart the same amount of force as a larger baton utilized by a smaller officer. Additionally, depending on the circumstances, an officer may encounter a situation in which a longer or shorter baton would be more desirable than that with which he or she has been provided as a standard issue.